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Barnegat police stop girl from jumping off Parkway overpass

Teamwork and quick thinking by officers from the Barnegat Police Department led to the rescue of a girl from the ledge of a Garden State Parkway overpass Monday afternoon.

Police received numerous calls reporting that a female was on the ledge of the West Bay Avenue overpass around 3:45 p.m., police said in a release.

Multiple officers arrived within one minute of the dispatch and observed a girl standing on the narrow ledge over the highway, clinging to a fence, according to police.

Patrolmen Alex Hoffman, Tim Bradshaw, Brett Taylor, and recent academy graduates Kyle Cranmer and Anthony Carlo controlled traffic on the overpass and began speaking with the girl from the roadway side of the fence. Concurrently, Sergeant Jeff Ryan stopped the northbound traffic on the Garden State Parkway from driving under the overpass, police said.

While the girl was distracted by the officers, patrolmen Andrew Parsley and Bryan Nogowski stepped undetected onto the outside portion of the overpass and were able to grab her, forcibly pulling her off of the ledge — despite her resistance — before she could fall or jump, according to police.

The girl was uninjured and transported to Southern Ocean Medical Center in Stafford for evaluation.

Parsley, Nogowski, and Taylor had finished their shifts and were leaving for the day but responded to the scene due to their close proximity and the nature of the call.